VOLUNTARY ASSISTED DYING —
INFORMATION
904. Hon NICK GOIRAN to the parliamentary secretary
representing the Minister for Health:
I refer to the recently released
Victorian Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board's ''Report of
Operations: January–June 2020''
and the startling revelation that 124 Victorians have ended their lives through
the administration of VAD poisons between 19 June 2019 and 30 June 2020.
(1) Is the minister aware of this
latest report released in August 2020?
(2) Given that the Victorian report has identified
that there is ''a lot of important information related to voluntary
assisted dying that the Board does not have the power to obtain'', what
steps will the government take to ensure a similar information blockage does
not occur in our state?
(3) Has the WA voluntary assisted dying implementation
leadership team considered the issue of board power to collect, use and
disclose information?
(4) Further to (3),
will the minister table the minutes of the meetings held to date by the
implementation leadership team?
Hon ALANNA
CLOHESY replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(1) Yes.
(2) Under section
119 of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2019, the Voluntary Assisted Dying
Board has all the powers it needs to perform its functions. The board is
established for the purpose of ensuring proper adherence to legislation and to
recommend safety and quality improvements. The board's functions, which
are set out in section 118 of the act, include advisory and monitoring
functions.
For matters relating to the response
to a request for access, section 22 of the act requires that a medical
practitioner receiving a first request for access to voluntary assisted dying
must notify the board of this request, including the medical practitioner's
decision to accept or refuse the first request and the reason for a refusal of a first request. The Victorian act
does not include this requirement for notification to its board.
Under section 152 of the act, the
minister may give a written direction to the board to record and retain
statistical information about a matter relating to voluntary assisted dying
specified in the direction. This provision is not a feature of the Victorian
act.
(3) The power of
the board to collect, use and disclose information is embedded in the
legislation and is not a matter for the implementation leadership team.
(4) Providing the
answer to this part of the question in the time required is not possible and I request
that the honourable member place it on notice.